


The Last Good-bye

by Jaye_Voy



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Adult Content, Explicit Language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-17
Updated: 2016-04-17
Packaged: 2018-06-02 17:04:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6574597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jaye_Voy/pseuds/Jaye_Voy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A story of McCoy's divorce.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Last Good-bye

**Author's Note:**

> Since Star Trek is a reboot I thought I'd do my own version of McCoy's past. I'm setting the death of McCoy's father before the events of the first reboot film. (In Star Trek V it was revealed that McCoy performed euthanasia on his suffering father.) I'm not positive about the names of his father and wife. Based on a McCoy Fic-a-thon prompt---Why did McCoy's wife really kick him out and take everything in the divorce?  
> Originally written in 2009. Although there are some tweaks, the story's contents (and its flaws) are mostly intact.  
> Star Trek and all related characters and concepts are the property of Gene Roddenberry as re-envisioned by JJ Abrams. No infringement is intended or profit made. This is PG-13 for adult themes and language.

Lamont Rhys, Esquire, leaned lightly on his cane as he strolled along a gravel path that led through woods alive with birdsong and the whisper of the breeze. When he stopped, he ran a hand through thin gray hair and adjusted his suit jacket. Wanting to put off his errand for just another moment.

Eventually he laid his fingertips on one half of the wrought-iron gate as he stepped into a small cemetery. The scattering of gravestones lay hidden in the vast gardens of Beaudemain, family estate turned public arboretum. Every marker drowsing in the dapple of sun and shadow held the name McCoy.

He found Leonard slumped on the ground between the two newest stones. A large, dark granite slab held the name of Lamont's best friend, David McCoy, dates, and Beloved Father. The other was smaller, a pale stone angel whose cupped hands held a picture of a laughing young girl, chestnut curls tumbling. Joanna McCoy the stone read, 3 Years Old, Sleep Sweet Baby Girl.

Leonard didn't stir, even when Lamont stepped up to rest a hand on one leather-clad shoulder. The boy looked like he'd spent the night here, not for the first time. Probably curled up in the spot already marked out for him, between the father and the daughter he'd lost within weeks of each other. Lamont pulled out a datapadd. "I'll need your signature and thumbprint on these."

"Is it done?" Leonard sat up straight and blinked at Lamont. Leonard had his mother's cypress-leaf eyes, shifting between the deep green of summer and the rich brown of autumn. A stranger might not've seen it, but for Lamont those eyes held sorrow deep as the grave. It lingered, heavy and clinging like Spanish moss, despite the months that had passed since that little white coffin had been laid to rest.

"Yes." Lamont held his breath as Leonard nodded and took the device, signing and marking wherever indicated without bothering to read a word. "Your divorce as well. You get to keep the clothes on your back and whatever's in your pockets, and you're damn lucky at that."

"Jocelyn didn't waste any time, did she?" Leonard wore his father's handsome face, but Lamont had never seen David McCoy look so bitter.

"And you thought missing your own hearing would *improve* that situation, Leonard?" Lamont made an exasperated sound in his throat. "You tried to choke the gal in front of your marriage counselor. By rights your sorry self should be hauled off to the detention center for the next five years, but I've made some other arrangements."

Leonard just grunted at that, but Lamont could see a dark flush rising above a few days' scruff of beard. Leonard didn't interrupt, so Lamont kept right on talking. "Fortunately for you, the judge was willin' to let me speak on your behalf. 'Bout all those hours you've been putting in at the hospital. Made it easy to consider how a man might succumb to the stress and grief...especially if he were drownin' his sorrows---"

Leonard's eyes flashed as he shoved the datapadd back into Lamont's hands. "Damn it, Lamont, I've never been drunk a day in my life."

Lamont almost smiled at the scowl. Anger had already gotten Leonard into a peck of trouble, but it was better than the somnambulation Leonard had exhibited since the funeral. The boy had been a goddamned zombie for too long. "Don't I know it. I can still hear your father sayin' time and again---'A good doctor knows to cap the bottle while he can still hold a scalpel'. But the judge wasn't aware of that---and *I* knew His Honor was fond of a drop of the medicinal himself, from time to time."

Leonard seemed to deflate, scrubbing one hand through his hair. "I'm sorry. I know you're doing what you can, it's just..."

Lamont would swear Leonard's sigh came from the depths of the boy's soul. Leonard focused on the stone angel. "I know I was staying too long at the hospital, that I wasn't there for Jocelyn, after...but I couldn't. Couldn't stay in the house. It was so quiet...too quiet...with Joanna gone."

Leonard fell silent, but Lamont just bided his time until Leonard spoke again. "But I thought things---we---I thought Jocelyn and I were starting to...I don't know. I was...we've been together since we were sixteen, Lamont, and when Jocelyn suggested going to the counselor, I figured nothing else'd helped so maybe..."

He swallowed, and his fists clenched as he gritted out, "Jocelyn said it was all my fault. All this time, she was thinkin' that, all this time and she never told me a thing, and it hurt all over again. It was like I'd lost Joanna all over again and all I could think was to stop the words, stop her from saying I'd killed Joanna---and my hands were around her throat and I just wanted her to stop..." Leonard's back bowed, shoulders jerking as his face fell into his hands, but he never made a sound.

Lamont felt his own eyes burn as lowered himself to his knees on the grass, cane and datapadd abandoned. He slid one arm around Leonard's shoulders. "Now hush, boy, you know that isn't true."

He began rocking Leonard, pressing his chin to the mussed hair. "It was an *accident*. You were in surgery. You couldn't just leave in the middle. You saved that young man's life. You couldn't have known---"

"I was supposed to pick her up---it was my turn." Leonard turned his face into Lamont's neck as if hiding there. "She should never have been on that flyer. I told the daycare that it was too flimsy, too dangerous. I told Jocelyn that Joanna had learned how to flip the release on her safety harness. I...I..."

Leonard slumped against him, voice dropping to a whisper barely louder than the pass of the wind. "My daughter died in the OR next to me, and I didn't even know it."

Lamont swallowed as Leonard lifted wet eyes and said, "I couldn't save my father, didn't save Joanna. And now I've lost Jocelyn...I don't know what to do. I can't go back to the hospital---they'll all know what happened, be on Jocelyn's side. I just...maybe I should---"

"You'll do what I tell you," Lamont growled as he took Leonard's face in his hands. "You'll *live*. First off, you'll pull yourself together and stop sleeping in the goddamn cemetery. You're not dead, so stop pretending that you are. What do you think your father would say if he saw you like this? Do you think Joanna would want her daddy killin' himself with a guilt that's not even his?"

Leonard opened his mouth but Lamont gave him a shake. "I'm not done yet, boy. Furthermore, you'll be parking your behind in my groundcar the minute we're done here. My driver is goin' to be takin' you to a transport that will deliver you to the Riverside shipyard in Iowa. Tomorrow morning you catch the shuttle for new recruits to Starfleet Academy. Your application's already been approved."

"What? Starfleet?" Leonard pulled back, jaw dropped, face white. "Lamont, I can't join *Starfleet*. You know how I feel about---"

"I don't give a good goddamn what you feel, or want." Lamont swiped up his datapadd and cane and struggled to his feet, joints creaking. "I'm doin' what's needed to keep you out of jail. I told you I'd made arrangements. The charges against you were dropped---provided you do a period of community service or its equivalent."

He settled back on his heels. "And Jocelyn decided that Starfleet would fill the bill." Lamont had great sympathy for a grieving mother, but Jocelyn had become one vindictive bitch. She'd known that Leonard's vague distrust of most technology had solidified into a true phobia regarding all manner of aircraft since the accident that claimed their daughter's life.

But when she'd chosen Starfleet, Lamont had agreed without a protest to send Leonard into space. Let the boy worry on *that*, instead of brooding about things he couldn't change and guilt he didn't deserve. "It was the only way she'd waive the charges and sign the divorce papers."

"She always did get her way." Leonard shook his head, expression still stunned but at least his color was returning.

"Yes, well, that's the nature of women, isn't it? Come on, now, we need to get goin' if you're goin' to make your transfer." Lamont fished in his pocket as Leonard pushed wearily to his feet.

He pulled out a silver flask, giving it a fond smile. "Your daddy gave me this on the day we graduated from college, so I would have something to remember my best friend by when I was away at law school."

Lamont held it out to Leonard. "I want you to have it, to help you remember us all when you're off among the stars."

Leonard blinked and swallowed, his hand shaky as he took it. "I'm not likely to forget." He reached out for Lamont's shoulder, squeezed. "Thank you, for everything."

"That's quite all right, my boy, quite all right." Lamont patted Leonard's knuckles. "Now help an old man to the car and we'll get you on your way."

But he had to wait a moment more. Leonard moved away and lifted his hand, pressed a kiss to his fingertips. He then laid them, ever so gently, on the little girl's brow.

THE END

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are welcomed with great joy and constructive criticism is treasured as a rare gift.


End file.
